Issues arise with Thought Experiments6 that stretch the boundaries of our Concepts7, so that it might be argued that it is arbitrary whether an individual survives the vicissitude (maybe inadequately) described in the TE.

But, it might be argued, individuals falling under a Natural Kind8 concept persist or fail to do so irrespective of us, our language and our concepts.

If personhood is an honorific, rather than a natural kind concept, then whether an individual persists as a person might indeed be conventional – depending on our concept person.

But whether an individual persists as an animal9 is not a matter of convention, though it might be subject to epistemological vagueness10.